Kablooie In the Mainstream Blogosphere!

I've missed alot on the blogosphere! Maybe you have too, since one of the things I found out was that Atrios and Kos purged their blogrolls and have angered alot of B-list and beyond mainstream bloggers. I know that most of the blogs that I read and conversely who read me aren't especially interested in the A-listers or mainstream blogs, so you may have missed the fireworks on this one. What interested me is that the anger, and the comments, mirrored what we POC bloggers had to say about the Clinton lunch and the arguments used against us. The reason people are hurt and angry is that they are being told they aren't good enough to join the high school clique, and that if they wrote better they wouldn't be purged. For comparison remember what we were told, "on the internet people don't know your skin color, so if you wrote better you would be popular and invited to the Clinton lunch..." but, the problem is that POC bloggers write about POC issues which don't always interest the majority of internet readers who happen to be white. It has nothing to do with the quality of writing. We will never have the mega audiences that some white writers have unless we write more about their issues or at least shared issues, and less about our own. So yes, you sometimes can tell skin color, or at least that some writers aren't white, by what interests us and may not interest you.

I think Maryscott O'Connor has this particular purge pegged at My Left Wing.

Booman. Dropped. The Rude Pundit -- dropped. WTF? These are legitimate sites with longstanding audiences and membership. So... Wait a minute. Is this a question of being an EMBARRASSMENT with the more Establishment types with whom you now consort, having successfully crashed the gate?" Are we now your embarrassing cousins? Sure, you'll be happy to glad-hand with us at the YKos family reunion, but QUICK, hide the nutty aunts when there's company around?

We got our rude awakening and now I think some of the smaller mainstream blogs are discovering the same thing. It's not about being good enough, it's about group think. You have to say what they want you to say, be moderate and mild and pliable to the political establishment. Don't rock the corporate DLC boat. In regards to the Clinton lunch it was about coopting the largest most influential blogs so that they would tone down their criticism of Hilary for '08. Maryscott notices something similar going on with Kos:

But as for political activism and leadership? Sorry, no sale, man -- the day he threw Paul Hackett under the bus on Rahm Emanuel's bidding was the day I knew Markos was just another DLC in training. "Nice try, live to fight another day, we're going with the anointed one" -- what a bunch of fucking BULLSHIT.

And then came Casey and Duckworth and on and on and on -- one after another the truly PROGRESSIVE, LIBERAL candidates were shoved aside because the ESTABLISHMENT Democrats, in the form of Schumer and Emanuel and Clinton et al, put their imprimatur on the safe, solidly centrist-to-conservative candidates.

And even when the cabal agreed to dump Lieberman, their cowardice in failing to rein him in and forcing him to drop his outrageous switch to "Independent" status on the ballot, my GOD, these are the people from whom Markos takes his cues. This is not a political leader, he is a follower. And he is following the wrong fucking people, for the love of god, he is following the SAME PEOPLE who have been leading the Democratic Party further and further into the wilderness of spinelessness, of cowardice, of dishonesty, of obeisance to polls and bullies and liars and fools.

I think alot of political bloggers are in it for the same two major reasons I am, to rant and say what I want to say and for change. Yes! Change! In the hopes that politicians will let US MOLD THEM. Will listen to what we the people have to say. We aren't stupid or naive enough to think this will be easy, but we try. The big boys may have started out this way, but have let the politicians mold the blogger instead of the other way around. They are bought and paid for. They know that if they have progressive principles that CNN and the NY Times won't want to interview them, or if they are controversial (have actual progressive ideas) that politicians and media will spinelessly slither away from them just like Edwards did to Amanda and Melissa.

Crashing the gate is only about becoming one of the in crowd, not having an impact in politics, but enriching your own pocketbook or rubbing elbows with the famous in hopes of becoming one of them. They are no different than hundreds of political consultants in DC who give us wishy washy losing strategies for the last several decades. They are becoming what they blasted only a couple of years ago. So just be moderate (conservative) and don't make any Democratic politician look bad, even if he is a DINO, and support the corporate DLC electable candidate instead of the one with principles who won't play ball with the establishment. That's dangerous! For the rich and powerful...who hire you as consultants, or invite you to lunches, or otherwise give you access to the cocktail weenies you once derided.

POC and other "equality" bloggers have always known that the powerful do not give up power without a fight. They will dismiss you and demonize you, and if it appears that isn't working and you are becoming powerful on your own they will coopt you and silence you. They coopted the Democratic Party through the DLC/tons of cash through their lobbyists and now they have coopted the big boy bloggers in much the same way. Principles, issues, and people no longer matter; access, fame, and ad revenue are the goals now.

Think I'm being overly cynical? Then you missed the other load of bullshit another A-lister was spouting. I'll let Brilliant at Breakfast give the run down on Chris Bowers of MyDD being an ass. This quote encapsulates it for me:

Fuck the big boys. They're the blogospheric equivalent of the Washington pundits who think they're better than bloggers because they get invited to the right parties and of the Democrats who hold fundraisers where they take money from corporations. We hold bake sales and support our candidates twenty-five bucks at a time. What's hilarious is that most of these guys come out of the 2004 Howard Dean campaign, only a taste of success has made them forget all about people-powered.

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